Unknown Mexico, Volume 1 (of 2) eBook

hunter but a poor shot he brought home but little game,
and made his living chiefly by trading with the Indians.
He was the picture of good-nature, laughing with the
Indians at their jokes, and weeping with them at their
sorrows. Among them he passed as a wit, and being
very honest was a general favourite. He never
took anything without asking, but was not backward
about that. Of his teeth he had hardly any but
two of his upper incisors left, which was rather hard
for a man of his ravenous appetite; but he utilised
them with such squirrel-like dexterity as almost to
keep pace with others.

Chapter XIII

The Tarahumare Physique—­Bodily
Movements—­Not as Sensitive to Pain
as White Men—­Their Phenomenal Endurance—­Health—­Honesty—­Dexterity
and Ingenuity—­Good Observers of the
Celestial Bodies and Weather-forecasters—­Hunting
and Shooting—­Home Industries—­Tesvino,
the Great National Drink of the Tribe—­Other
Alcoholic Drinks.

The Tarahumare of to-day is of medium size and more
muscular than his North American cousin, but his cheek-bones
are equally prominent. His colour is light chocolate-brown.
I was rather surprised often to find the faces of
the people living in the warm barrancas of a lighter
colour than the rest of their bodies. The darkest
complexions, strange to say, I encountered on the
highlands near Guachochic. In the higher altitudes
the people also develop higher statures and are more
muscular than in the lower portions of the country.

Both men and women wear long, flowing, straight black
hair, which in rare cases is a little wavy. When
a woman marries, I am told, she cuts her hair once.
When the hair is cut because it has grown too long
and troublesome, they place it under a stone or hang
it in a tree. A shaman once cut his hair short
to get new thoughts with the new hair, and while it
was growing he kept his head tied up in a piece of
cotton cloth to keep his thoughts from escaping.
When the people are very old, the hair turns gray;
but they never grow bald. Beards are rare, and
if they appear the Indians pull them out. Their
devil is always represented with a beard, and they
call the Mexicans derisively shabotshi, “the
bearded ones.” Much as they enjoy tobacco,
an Indian would not accept some from me, because he
feared that coming from a white man it would cause
a beard to grow on his face.

There are more women in the tribe than men. They
are smaller, but generally just as strong as the other
sex, and when angered, for instance by jealousy, the
wife may be able to beat her husband. Hands and
feet are small. Many of the women have surprisingly
small and well-shaped bones, while the men are more
powerfully built. The corner teeth differ from
the front teeth in that they are thicker, and, in
spite of exceptionally fine teeth, tooth-ache is not
unknown in the tribe. Men, even those who are
well nourished, are never stout. The women are
more inclined to corpulency.